The goal of the proposed work is to trace the development of the child's appreciation of authentic and inauthentic emotional displays. Its fundamental assumption is the need to determine the age(s) when infants acquire the capacity to distinguish between various aspects of authenticity and in authenticity in communication. Ultimately, that information will help determine what processes underlie developmental shifts in this important phenomenon. Eventually, we hope to study how parents shift in the frequency, intensity, and contexts wherein they engage in inauthentic displays, and what consequences these inauthentic displays have for the infant's future development. The series of studies presented in this application will investigate the ontogeny of the detection of authentic emotional displays. Each experiment will look at what we believe is one of three aspects that enter into identifying emotional authenticity, aspects which develop into the more organized and functional system of identifying in authenticity present in adults. These aspects of components include: (1) matching emotional expressions to appropriate contextual information, (2) detecting discrepancies between vocal and facial information, and (3) using knowledge gained through past experience with an individual in future encounters. The proposed research will extend past research by focusing on how the child is able to use authenticity detection to guide social behavior. Prior work has focused on assessments of discrimination of congruent and incongruent displays;the present work stresses differential regulation of behavior by such displays, as well as qualitatively different emotional reactions by the infant (e.g., laughter) to incongruent displays. Research on infants'developing ability to detect inauthentic emotional displays will ultimately help address major functional properties of the development of the human personality and social functioning. The formation of trusting relationships is intimately linked to authenticity of social interactions, and the study of authenticity and in authenticity as encountered by the infant in interaction with others in the environment will allow us to better understand the formation of infant social relationships with others. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project concerns the processes fundamental to the development of the perception of authentic and inauthentic emotion in communication with a significant other. Important as this aptitude for detection of authentic displays is for social interaction and personality development, it has almost exclusively been studied in older children and adults. This project focuses on four aspects of the manifestation of authentic and inauthentic displays: (1) context appropriateness, (2) appropriate level of intensity, (3) the masking of emotional communications, and (4) experiences that generate an "adaptation level" about how authentic or inauthentic an individual typically is in his or her emotional communication. Authentic and inauthentic communication cut across the lifespan;the exploratory work supported by this grant opens up the study of the roots of perception of authentic and inauthentic displays, and how this perception develops with regards to age, cognitive development, and experience.